Thumb Clip, Pull Pin, Throw Grenade: Training Really Works and It’s Worth Your Time

It was February 24, 1991, the skies over occupied Kuwait were ominously black with dirty clouds blocking out the sun. The 1st Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment, a critical component of “Task Force Ripper” had just ripped though the double-mine fields emplaced by the occupying Iraqi Army, then the 4th largest army in the world.

Trained in Soviet military doctrine, the Iraqis had laid a minefield with anti-tank, anti-personnel and the requisite barbed wire obstacles over 100 meters deep along the entire border between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Directly beyond that was a few hundred meters of “kill zone” and then an identical minefield set up. Beyond the second minefield were entrenched infantry, supported by 82mm Soviet mortars, then tanks, and artillery batteries festooned with Soviet 152mm cannon.

This defensive concept wasn’t complex. When the enemy attempts to breach the first minefield, start hitting them with indirect fire. The remaining enemy that reached the second minefield would be trapped in the kill zone, unable to rapidly advance or rapidly retreat. Before the enemy could successfully breach minefield #2, they could be hammered into submission with the aforementioned mortars and artillery.

That all looked good on paper, and the Iraqi Army stationed north of the dual minefields likely felt secure that they could beat back the American infidels with their amassed forces. However, what they couldn’t know and what they weren’t able to take into account was the fact the exactly one year prior, Battalion 1/6 had been in the desert of the 29 Palms USMC training base, the Corps’ largest live-fire training facility, and had practiced doing exactly that…breaching Soviet-style minefields.

That morning in 1991, 1/6 was creating a land-locked beachhead for the US Army’s “Tiger Brigade” use. 

The primary tool for such an endeavor was the U.S. Army line charge—most commonly known as the M58 mine clearing line charge — a rocket-projected explosive system used to rapidly clear a safe path through minefields and complex obstacles under combat conditions. Each line charge laid out 2000 pounds of C4 explosive that detonated simultaneously.

I’m getting a bit misty just explaining it to you. Give me a moment to get a tissue.

Part two of the plan would be the USMC M-60A1 tank covered in reactive armor and sporting a vicious-looking mine plow on the front. The moment the first line charge detonated, shaking the Earth so as to leave no doubt as to what just happened, the M-60 surged forward to “proof the lane” and push any possible remaining mines, obstacles, etc. off to the side. 

During the early hours of 2/24/91, the entire battalion had moved under cover of darkness up to the Kuwait border. Moments before dawn, the first line charge blew and our Amtracs lurched forward, moving as fast as practical in a solid stream of armored steel death machines.

The Iraqis started loading and firing their mortars and cannon as quickly as they could. In minutes we were at the second minefield and the rushing sound of the second rocket-propelled line charge ripped through the air, instantly followed by another earthshaking explosion. Again, our battalion with an M-60A1 tank proofing the lane, flowed through the mine field, single file.  

Breaking out of the second minefield, the battalion spread out and the 105mm rifled cannons, the big guns on the M-60A1 tanks, started looking for targets. “Blue One Actual, Blue Two, T-72 in the open 1400 meters.” “Blue Two, Engage” The super-accurate tank guns equipped with laser range finders found target after target. “Blue One, T-72 destroyed!” 

The entrenched Iraqi infantry desperately opened fire on the oncoming armored assault. The .50 caliber machine-guns and fully automatic 40mm grenade launchers mounted to the smaller Amtrac turrets let loose. Then, just as suddenly, our track surged to a halt. The familiar mechanical sound of the massive latches on the rear loading ramp activated, releasing the ramp and allowing the dim light of the overcast day into the Amtrac. 

I was first into the track, so that meant I was last off as Marine infantrymen, dressed in M81 woodland camo chemical protective suits with helmets, body armor, and load-bearing gear rushed out in battle formation.

Exiting the track, I made a hard left turn and witnessed the scene. Marines sprinted the best they could in their rubber chemical-protective overboots leaving odd, alien looking footprints in the sand. As we had hundreds of times before, the men moved out in front of the track and dropped down, spaced out ten meters between, and took aim at the enemy. I linked up with the platoon, AT4 in hand, just as the squad leader began to form the men up to assault the trenches.

With no armored target in sight, I used the sling on the rocket launcher to carry it over my back and drew my only other weapon, an M9 Beretta 9mm pistol.

We broke into small teams and moved to trench lines, then began a leapfrog maneuver. First man up throws a grenade into the opening of a bunker. After the detonation, the next two immediately jump into the trench and open fire into the bunker with M-16A2 rifles and M249 squad automatic weapons.

Soon I was at the front of the stack. I already had an M67 fragmentation grenade in my right hand. In my mind I said, “Thumb clip, pull pin, throw grenade.” Into the bunker opening flew the little green ball of death. Four or so anxious seconds later it blew and two of my teammates burst through the entrance, guns blazing.

Back to the Beginning 

Nearly four years earlier, I was a Private in Recruit Training on Parris Island. We were in Phase Three of our training, the last one, and conducting “field training”, basic infantry stuff. Using the ubiquitous “blue trainers,” dummy grenades with live fuses, our instructors drilled the procedure into us. “Hold the spoon (the safety lever) down tightly ” we were admonished.

M67 grenades had three safety devices; the safety lever, the safety clip which held the lever down, and the famous safety pin. “Now, thumb the clip, pull the pin, throw the grenade.” At first our instructors made us recite it aloud.  

Later, I would be in Infantry School at Camp Lejeune going through the hell that was the “Assault Course,” hundreds of yards of crawling on your belly under barbed wire and obstacles as the special training machineguns fired constantly overhead to get to the bunkers where you were required to toss a blue grenade through the bunker opening. Near exhaustion, I reached my target; “thumb clip, pull pin, throw grenade.” 

The Epiphany 

During the 100 hour, four-day ground war to retake occupied Kuwait, I didn’t have much time for reflection or introspection. However, during the weeks after cessation of hostilities, when we were just waiting for our turn to rotate back home, I was able to replay the events over and over. From the moment we loaded our Amtrac in the dark on 2/23 to stopping our advance at the outskirts of Kuwait City on 2/28, the time had all melted together. Days and nights blended and became just one long extended experience. Due to the heavy cloud cover, we would not see the sun for four days. 

Now, able to relax under the bright March sun in the scenic desert outside of KC, I considered my own behavior as well as the performance of the men on my team. Moving forward, military historians would study the Desert Storm ground war, a near miraculous endeavor given its size and scope, for years.

From my small perspective, the greatest takeaway I could come up with was how effective our training had been. The “fog of war” is a very real thing. We had it all; heavy clouds and smoke, the constant crushing sound of both outgoing and incoming mortar, tank, and artillery fire. At night the absolute blackness of the sky was only punctuated by illumination rounds from our 155mm howitzers or the bright orange flashes of the main guns of the tanks.

Battalion 1/6 arrived in Saudi Arabia in August of 1990. During the Desert Shield portion of the operation, the one everyone seems to forget about, all we did was train and practice. First small unit platoon-sized training, then company-sized, and later, when we got our Amtracs, battalion-sized training maneuvers. We would load up, travel to somewhere the command had chosen, then practice assaulting through the position.

We engaged in the “I’m up, they see me, I’m down” assault drills until we could do it in our sleep. Our team practiced assault and cover drills, over and over and over until every man knew exactly what we expected of him and could execute without specific direction. Of course, all the practicing we did in the desert was built upon all the prior training we had gone through. We had no way to know that our month of training in Feb. of 1990 at MCB 29 Palms was going to be invaluable exactly one year later.

I found it a bit humorous, but also extremely enlightening that during the rush of emotions, the distractions, the noise of combat, standing at the opening of an enemy bunker, I would literally run through the same “thumb clip, pull pin, throw grenade” mantra in my head that I first learned on Parris Island years before. 

The moral of the story: training works and it’s worth the time investment. The more rigorous and serious your training is, the better you’ll perform when the time comes. You don’t need to be a Marine or a soldier to benefit from training. I had a team to rely on. When it comes time for you to fight for your life, you might be all you have. Remember, your responsibility for being ready for the fight never ends.      

 

Paul G. Markel is a combat decorated United States Marine veteran. He is also the founder of Student of the Gun University and has been teaching Small Arms & Tactics to military personnel, police officers, and citizens for over three decades.